SAN FRANCISCO — On July 1st, 2010 the legendary Berkeley all-ages music club 924 Gilman faces a very large and unexpected rent increase, nearly $3,000 per month. The venue is now struggling to generate an extra $31,000 a year needed to cover the massive rent hike.

Outside of New York and London, California’s Bay Area claims the oldest continuous punk rock scene in the world — from the innovative late-70s art-damage of San Francisco’s Fab Mab in North Beach, to the still vibrant all-ages DIY ethos of Gilman, where bands like Green Day, Rancid, and AFI got their start. Conceived and managed by an all-volunteer community, Gilman has been in operation for over 23 years, providing inspiration and empowerment for Bay Area youth, as well as music fans around the world.

Starting May 1st and continuing throughout the month of May, select independent bookstores in the Bay Area will donate a percentage of sales of the oral history book, “GIMME SOMETHING BETTER: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day,” by Jack Boulware & Silke Tudor. A percentage of the book’s proceeds will be donated to 924 Gilman to help keep this important venue from suffering the same fate as New York’s CBGB’s, which is now a clothing store.

GIMME SOMETHING BETTER represents the definitive chronicle of Bay Area punk music, progressive politics, social consciousness, and divine decadence. The book features black and white photographs throughout, an exhaustive who’s-who list, and an introduction by Jesse Michaels, famed singer of Operation Ivy.

“Gimme Something Better has it all: dead dogs, statutory rape, skinhead fights, the origins of the term ‘emo,’ promoters accidentally taking acid in jail, M-80s, soup lines, people falling through skylights, people getting torched with flamethrowers, teenagers on meth squatting in empty beer vats, exhumed bodies, laundromats, Ford Pintos, murderers and millionaires…There are also some parts about bands.“ – North Bay Bohemian

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